Spanda (स्पन्द)

 
Fierceness is not the only path.
Anger is just one flavor of fire.
There are other ways to become authentic,
as when a hummingbird loses herself
in a sip from the honeysuckle fountain,
or a barn owl drops the heart of a mouse
down her owlet's yearning gorge.

Or merging with spanda wherever you are,
that which expands and contracts
yet remains like the sky,
the breath of boundless space delighting
in the gasp of an atom,
This!

If you would become a lord among fools,
penetrate the flame.
Immolate your lungs in the divine shadow.
Darkness is not the opposite of light
but the womb of light.
It is good for those who get lost in colors
to hear this again and again.
Pierce the black hole of un-knowing
and mother your own nebula.

Both sun and moon ascend through infinite night.
Stars are brilliant, yet savory
is the blackness between them.
Her rays cast a sparkling path
across the waters of your mind,
and his golden beam, through morning mist,
caresses the bud beneath your bruises.
Who can say a woman is more gentle than a man?

Tremors of Shakti in Shiva's stillness,
throbbings of Tamuz in the uterus of Ishtar,
all of Christ in a single tear of Mary.
Your mother and father are sacred serpents
entangled in the tree of your spine.
They tempt you with their fruit,
yet the fruit is you, the whole garden is you.
Take, eat, this is your body,
that which expands and contracts
yet remains like the sky.

Why make war between woman and man?
Perhaps there are eight billion sexes: what then?
Conflict is a choice, one ripple
in the ocean of choicelessness.
You could choose dancing.
You could dance for no reason.
You could dance because one becomes two,
waltzing with the dragon of your own rainbow.

Now spin and whirl.
There's a ballroom at the center of your brain.
Your pineal gland is a chandelier
containing the stars you thought were above you.
For the sake of the children,
please don't go back to sleep.

Self-luminous your Being, clear and empty,
whether you wake or dream.
Penetrate the flame.
In the cloudless sky of now, be the lord of fools.
Drown all other pronouns in "Thou."
You have a rendezvous with someone
prior to light, earlier than darkness.
Friend, your whole life pulses
from this joy.


Art by Pooja Bhapkar